Salt Lake City Publishes Plan to Tackle Climate Change and Carbon Pollution
Climate Positive plan prioritizes regional collaboration, community participation, and innovation to reduce pollution and enhance local resilience to warming temperatures.
Salt Lake City has released a comprehensive plan entitled Climate Positive 2040, detailing ways the Capitol City will sustain its leadership role in addressing climate change.
On January 12, 2017, Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski signed the Sustainable Infrastructure Executive Order, calling for citywide collaboration on sustainability.
Mayor Biskupski charges up an electric vehicle using one of the 28 new Level 2 EV charging ports located across Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski and DAQ Director Bryce Bird announced Wednesday the addition of 28 new electrical vehicle charging ports across the city.
The new “smart” Level 2 EV charging stations are located at 12 sites—new and existing—across Salt Lake City and have replaced five older units.
Locations include the International Peace Gardens in Jordan Park, Sorenson Multicultural Center, Sunnyside Avenue near Hogle Zoo, Pioneer Park, the Forest Dale Golf Course, and more.
Google’s Project Sunroof shows Salt Lake City’s massive solar potential. Click the image to navigate to the Sunroof site to explore the city’s energy potential.
Did you know that more solar energy reaches Earth in just five days than all of the fossil fuel reserves combined? Harnessing that solar energy is a critical part of switching to renewable energy and creating a more sustainable community, especially for sunny Utah.
And while the $2,000 state solar tax credit is set to phase out by 2021, there’s still enormous room for growth.
The Utah Legislative Session is in its final days. All proposed bills must be passed before midnight on March 9.
Salt Lake City has staff who attend important hearings, speak to our legislators, and represent the City’s interests in the 45-day session. Here in the Sustainability Department, we closely follow important bills particularly as they relate to air quality, energy, food, and other sustainability initiatives.
One of the most impactful ways to improve air quality is to fully fund the state agencies that must research and regulate it. This is a common sense measure that Salt Lake City supports. Because it is not under our purview to regulate air quality permits, emissions, or compliance with the federal Clean Air Act, we want to see the State’s Division of Air Quality– which does undertake those tasks–receive the funding they need to do their jobs effectively.
However, receiving their full appropriations request is never a sure thing.
In the waning days of the 2017 session, we hope the Utah Legislature will support clean air funding and other bills to reduce pollution.
For more information, please read the below copy of Breathe Utah’s recent letter to the Executive Appropriations Committee. To stay informed on air quality legislation, please visit HEAL Utah, Breathe Utah, Utah Clean Energy, or Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.
March 8, 2017
To: The Honorable Members of the Executive Appropriations Committee
Re: Budget for the Division of Air Quality Continue reading
Salt Lake City and Salt Lake Chamber partner on the Third Annual Skyline Challenge to accelerate commercial building energy efficiency
As part of her mission to improve air quality, reduce carbon emissions, and form strong partnerships with the business community, Mayor Jackie Biskupski is pleased to launch the Third Annual Skyline Challenge—this year with the Salt Lake Chamber joining the roster of partners.
The annual Skyline Challenge is a voluntary program to accelerate investment in energy efficiency from large commercial buildings and raise public awareness of building energy performance while creating jobs and fostering a stronger local economy.
As part of Salt Lake City’s commitment to pursuing cost-effective measures to reduce air pollution, Mayor Jackie Biskupski transmitted to the City Council an energy benchmarking and tune-up ordinance for large commercial buildings, which the Council will consider today during their work session.
The proposed market-based ordinance would eliminate over 98 tons of criteria pollutants from Salt Lake City’s air each year by phasing-in new requirements for buildings over 25,000 square feet to “benchmark” their energy usage annually, using the EPA’s free ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager software, followed by energy “tune-ups” for low-performing buildings.
Benchmarking allows building owners and managers to identify if their buildings are good candidates for efficiency improvements to reduce energy waste—and therefore air pollution. The free Portfolio Manager® program also gives buildings an energy score from 1 to 100, with anything 75 or over considered to be high-performing.
Buildings would then report their ENERGY STAR score to Salt Lake City.
by Eli Wire
It’s January, and while you might be focusing on a fresh start to the New Year, you may have noticed Salt Lake City’s air has been anything but fresh. It’s something every Salt Lake City resident is familiar with, and whether you call it smog, inversion, pollution, or just plain bad air, each of us can have an impact on our air quality.
Here at Salt Lake City Corp, we’re doing everything we can to clear the air. One of those is an employee alternative transportation challenge! This month, we’re asking all 3,000 of Salt Lake City’s employees to take part by picking at least one day per week to get to work without driving alone in their vehicles.
The City makes this easy by providing full-time employees with transit passes. “Alternative transportation” also means biking or walking to work; finding a carpool buddy; or telecommuting.
The Challenge also extends to other clean air actions through our sustainability platform called Empower SLC, which was designed and is powered by Sustain3.
Here’s how the Clean Air Challenge works: Continue reading
The beginning of a new year is a good time to take note of all the achievements we’ve made over the past 12 months. It was a banner year for Sustainability in SLC– from our office becoming a full Department, to launching a new market program, to establishing ambitious clean energy goals.
We publish an annual report detailing our major accomplishments for the year. You can read the highlights from 2016 below, or download the full report here.
Thank you to our many partners who’ve helped us along the way. And happy New Year from all of us at SLCgreen!
You may remember how excited we were to collaborate with Utah Clean Energy and the University of Utah on the second round of U Drive Electric this fall.
The goal: Get more EV’s on the road to promote cleaner air.
The how: By spreading the word about the limited-time bulk discounts available through the University of Utah’s innovative program.
Over the course of September and October, we worked with the U. and Utah Clean Energy to speak with hundreds of people about what “going electric” really means– including how cost-effective owning an electric vehicle is.
Now that this round has wrapped up, we’re excited to announce that 127 electric vehicles were purchased through U Drive Electric II!
When combined with Round I there are now over 200 new electric vehicles on the road thanks to U Drive Electric. These new EV owners have taken an important step towards improving air quality along the Wasatch Front.
Testimonials from U Drive Electric participants can be found at utahev.org
